College of Arts and Sciences

Survey Question 4

What were special equipment/training needs for faculty members to support enriched remote/online teaching?

an deep understanding of eCourseware capabilities.

The special equipment required was a reliable WiFi system- some of the students kept loosing their connection.

None, but I will purchase a laptop for the AAAS program's adjunct instructor.

Equipment - advanced cameras and microphones with training on how to use. Additional training on setting up Zoom conferences

Most of my faculty had already taught online and the summer workshops were helpful for those who want additional training. But, I feel too much falls on faculty about making things ADA accessible and the university should provide more support in making materials accessible not just telling faculty to do it.

The Summer Institute was great in many ways. It wasn't originally designed for this purpose, which did leave a mismatch in how much it was about best teaching practices instead of about how to implement teaching practices in an online format. I'm happy it was available but it was a lot of work that didn't necessarily confront the main need to translate a classroom style to an online format. That said, the tech support folks (I worked with Barrett Schwarz) was fantastic.

More training in particular technologies - e.g. recording video lectures.

This varied, based on faculty exposure to teaching M50.

The same. Most people needed help in teaching online, but also in teaching remotely. It's not a great method even in the best of times, so people really need to know how to maximize their effectiveness.

One issue that arose was the need to develop virtual desktops in the Johnson Hall TAF lab. IT facilitated this, but several faculty and staff needed to assist to make it work.

Equipment for streaming lectures and software for editing video. Training for better communication with students in online setting.

We have not been buying laptops for faculty. It has historically been more expensive than replacing the CPUs. We haven't had an adequate budget for technology. We are going to need to move to buying laptops with ports and moving away from using the towers.

Adequate computer with camera, internet access, GA or TA to support the online teaching.

Our online coordinator did a great job helping those faculty members not familiar with online teaching. I also made sure to assign technologically sophisticated GAs to faculty that I expected to have a harder time with technology issues.

Apart from training that we did as a department during spring break, I cannot think of anything.